Building an Address Book with OpenLDAP
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Defining the Contact Attributes

One of the first goals in creating contacts is to decide what information to store for each entry. Once we know that, we can map our needs to the right LDAP attributes.

Let's consider a typical contact entry. Obviously, we will want to know the contact's name and address, her phone number, and her email address. Read Table 1 to review these real-world attributes and the LDAP attributes to which they map. From now on, we will use a combination of real-world attribute names and LDAP attribute names, so refer to this table as needed.

Table 1. Common LDAP Attributes used for Contact Entries

Attribute	ObjectClass	Meaning
commonName, cn	person	Individual's full name
givenName, gn	inetOrgPerson	Individual's first name
surname, sn	person	Individual's last name
physicalDeliveryOfficeName	organizationalPerson	Department or delivery office name
mail	inetOrgPerson	Email address
postalAddress	organizationalPerson	Street mailing address
l	organizationalPerson	City
st	organizationalPerson	State
postalCode	organizationalPerson	Postal (ZIP) code
telephoneNumber	organizationalPerson	Work number
facsimileTelephoneNumber	organizationalPerson	Fax number
pager	inetOrgPerson	Pager number
mobile	inetOrgPerson	Mobile phone number
homePhone	inetOrgPerson	Home phone number

Any entry in our directory requires a DN. For this article, we will use a contact's full name to establish the uniqueness of each DN. The full name is specified using the commonName (cn) attribute. Let's create an example entry with a fictitious employee of Conglomo, Inc. named Jane Doe in a file named contact.ldif:

dn: cn=Jane Doe, ou=addressbook, dc=example, dc=com

Now that the DN is defined, we can go ahead and start defining the LDAP attributes that we want. Begin by defining the commonName (cn, givenName (gn), and surname (sn) attributes:

cn: Jane Doe
gn: Jane
sn: Doe

All of these attributes require objectClass person, so we need to define that, as well:

objectClass: person

Next, let's define the email address for our contact using the mail attribute:

mail: jane.doe@example.com

The mail attribute requires objectClass inetOrgPerson, which belongs to organizationalPerson, so let's use those object classes:

objectClass: organizationalPerson
objectClass: inetOrgPerson

The next attribute we will define is physicalDeliveryOfficeName. It's required for two reasons. First, the attribute allows you to specify the name of the office to where mail should be sent. Also, since we are using the organizationalUnit attribute to define our addressbook container, we can't really define a department name, as the department name is defined by the organizationUnit attribute. This is a bit contorted, but that's how LDAP-aware email clients use it.

Let's go ahead and define these attributes:

physicalDeliveryOfficeName: Conglomo, Inc., Financial Services

Most LDAP-aware email clients recognize an additional company attribute. It defines the company name; in this case, Conglomo, Inc. Unfortunately, this attribute is not standard, and requires that you use a custom schema. (Search for more information by looking for microsoft.schema.)

Now we are free to define Jane's mailing address:

postalAddress: PO BOX 55555
l: Baton Rouge
st: LA
postalCode: 70555

With this information and the physicalDeliveryOfficeName, LDAP clients will see the following when requesting Jane's physical address:

Jane Doe
Conglomo, Inc., Financial Services
PO BOX 77831
Baton Rouge, LA 70879

Next, specify Jane's phone information for her work phone, fax, pager, mobile phone, and home phone number:

telephoneNumber: 555-555-5555
facsimileTelephoneNumber: 555-555-5556
pager: 555-555-5557
mobile: 555-555-5558
homePhone: 555-555-5559

Finally, we need to define the organizational unit:

ou: addressbook

At this point we are finished creating Jane's LDIF-formatted entry. You should now have a file named contact.ldif with the following information:

dn: cn=Jane Doe, ou=addressbook, dc=example, dc=com
objectClass: top
objectClass: person
objectClass: organizationalPerson
objectClass: inetOrgPerson
cn: Jane Doe
gn: Jane
sn: Doe
mail: jane.doe@example.com
physicalDeliveryOfficeName: Conglomo, Inc., Financial Services
postalAddress: PO BOX 55555
l: Baton Rouge
ou: addressbook
st: LA
postalCode: 70555
telephoneNumber: 555-555-5555
facsimileTelephoneNumber: 555-555-5556
pager: 555-555-5557
mobile: 555-555-5558
homePhone: 555-555-5559

You should notice that I moved the objectClass attributes to the top of the entry and added an objectClass:

objectClass: top

This isn't actually necessary, but I'm a sucker for completeness, and I typically fully define all object classes used when creating an entry.

Import our example entry into the directory with ldapadd:

$ ldapadd -D 'dc=example, dc=com' -f contact.ldif -W
Enter LDAP Password: secret

After ldapadd is done, you will have your first contact entry in your directory. Again, you can use ldapsearch to dump the entire directory, or, as shown below, to perform a more specific lookup:

$ ldapsearch -b 'ou=addressbook, dc=example, dc=com' '(objectclass=*)'

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